Top 10 PR tips for your business from Lime Tree Communications

If you’re reading this, the chances are that you are thinking about public relations activity for your business and concerned about how to promote yourself. Good PR is about much more than having a press release issued. It’s about your outward facing personality and brand – and how people view you.

Lime Tree Communications offers a fully integrated marketing, PR and communications service across Bournemouth, Dorset and Hampshire. We are a small agency with big ideas… and like to keep our costs at an affordable level for our clients.

We are confident we can help you promote your business or organisation in a positive manner – so please contact us on a no obligation basis.

In the meantime here are 10 top PR tips for you to consider:

1. Make your business newsworthy.

Lime Tree Communications can sit down with you and brainstorm lots of ideas and activities and dig out the most newsworthy aspects. With our professional perspective we can guide you as to what will be considered to be ‘news’ and what would just be ‘spin’.

2. Trust your PR agency

If you’re taking the step to invest in professional PR and communications services it is vital that you trust your PR agency. Do you like their style? Do you feel they understand your objectives? Successful PR comes from a mutual understanding between agency and client.

3. Include PR as part of your business plan

Any business or organisation will have a business plan – and you should ensure that PR and marketing are integrated into this plan. What’s the use of being successful in what you do if you’re not telling people about it! If all goes according to plan – your plan will help you become more successful.

4. Invest in your profile

At Lime Tree Communications we will work alongside you to look at your profile. This could include your brand identity or corporate logo, your marketing materials such as brochures and flyers; your advertising campaigns; your outward facing communications –such as letters and email styles, your web presence and your media communications and PR. Getting it right is a worthwhile investment in terms of both time and money.

5. Target your media

Blanket coverage is pointless. At Lime Tree Communications we will help you target the right media for your PR, advertising and communications – helping you to hit the right audience.

6. Be prepared and capitalise

Lime Tree Communications will help you capitalise on successful PR and marketing. For example, if you obtain coverage are your staff all fully up to speed with the campaign? Are they customer-focused and ready to make a good impression if people respond to a ‘call to action’? Generating enquiries is all well and good – but it could backfire massively with one bit of poor customer care.

7. Be credible, be dynamic

Easier said than done… but the professional writers at Lime Tree Communications are here to ensure that your PR and communications are fresh, zesty and credible. There is a skill in writing good copy that exposes the good things about your business, but keeps a reality check in place. At the end of the day honesty and integrity come to the fore – but there are techniques to adopt in making sure the right words are used to express your businesses profile or ‘personality’.

8. The time and the place

If you have a PR plan in place you can ensure that your media communications have a good chance of being used. By planning your media and communications campaigns you can maximise their effectiveness. Just for example – can you find something newsworthy to fit into an annual celebration – such as Easter or Halloween? Can you tie in to an annual event such as ‘National Aprenticeships Week’ or ‘National Chip Week’? The PR professionals at Lime Tree Communications will help you assess this.

9. Synergy

Synergy is vital in terms of marketing, PR, branding and communications. Everything needs to work together. This is often overlooked – particularly in terms of how you use your brand or logo. Your on line and off line media needs to be fully integrated to maximise combined effect and to make you look really professional. Lime Tree Communications can work with you on this – demystifying the process.

10. Reality check

This may sound odd from a PR professional – but you really will need to be realistic about what is news and what isn’t. It goes back to point 2 – trust. A PR professional will gently guide you towards a genuine item of interest, and will steer you away from those that just won’t cut it. Sometimes it’s a tough call – but is also linked into being credible. And finally, you will need to have a realistic perspective as to the amount of coverage you will receive, and its impact.

Lime Tree Communications is here to support your business or organisation across Bournemouth, Dorset, Hampshire and the New Forest. We will put these 10 top PR tips into practice and help your business shine! Get in touch… we look forward to hearing from you.